
Board Update
October 11, 2018
Showcase: Isanti Middle School & Minnesota Center Bluejacket Commons
Board Committee Reports
School board members belong to standing and representative committees such as policy review, finance, Schools for Equity in Education, Minnesota State High School League, Community Education Advisory, Communications Advisory, and more. They share highlights from their participation on these committees and other good news at regular school board meetings. Here are a few highlights:
Legislative update from the SEE meeting on Sept. 21, and the SCRED Legislative meeting.
Bluejacket alumni, Chris Miller, was named as one of 50 outstanding people of Minnesota. Chris is a Bluejacket alumna, and former director of teaching and learning.
CIS had their first Sheridan Story distribution with 40 students participating.
CPS second and first graders had field trips to the Ordway Center for Performing Arts and DNR to meet Smokey the Bear.
CMS took a St. Croix Riverboat Tour to study potamology.
Fall sports continue to enjoy success. Homecoming was a great occasion for the C-I community.
Dr. Steve Gibbs, principal of Cambridge-Isanti High School, recently had the opportunity to sub a civics class which was a good opportunity for him.
School conferences have been occurring.
Meeting Overview
Each month a variety of non-action and action items are brought before the board. Here are a few noteworthy items:
Student Trips: Middle school trip to Washington, DC was approved. Model UN trip to nationals in Chicago, IL was approved. High school trips to Australia and Germany were approved. Read more about the learning opportunities these trips will provide students in the agenda.
The certification process through the state was completed for the before and after school childcare program, Adventure Center. Changes to the program's handbook reflect required language from the state.
Policy 722 - Public Data Requests was approved.
Policy 301 - School District Administration was approved.
Policy 205 - Open and Closed Meetings was approved.
Policy 534 - Unpaid Meal Balances was approved.
Superintendent's Report
MASA Conference Update
I attended two sessions with Peter Gamwell, retired principal from Newfoundland, Canada, who shared numerous stories of how to connect with students in non-traditional ways. The session was focused on ways for schools to be creative and innovative in how we make those connections with students. I attended another session that was focused on aligning district initiatives with the goals of the school district and connecting staff with those initiatives. One other session I attended was with Bill Stanton who is an executive producer Almost Live!, an improve TV show, and he shared how producing a TV show and preparing for that event is a lot like running organizations. Talking about planning, communication, teamwork and partnering to achieve goals and initiatives. It was a tremendous fall conference and I appreciate the support of the board in allowing me to attend.
Homecoming
It was a great week with a lot of school spirit and activities. Thanks to Dr. Gibbs and all our principals for their tremendous leadership during this special week. Unfortunately the football game did not go our way on Friday evening, but the student support was tremendous. Even as the weather continued to decline our student section remained full and active until the end of the game. Evidence of the great students we have at C-I Schools!
No School
Just a reminder that there is no school on October 18, 19 and 22.
Administration Report Highlights
At each regular school board meeting district administration provides a report of central department items. Here is an overview of key points:
Administrative Services and Human Resources
The Insurance Committee gathered on Oct. 1 and reviewed the initial claims spend for the new plan year. This is our first year having the plan begin July 1 and end June 30, one clear benefit was doing open enrollment in May rather than Sept. An initial draft of an onboarding plan was introduced at to the administrative team and discussions were held regarding the best approach to supporting new hires and making sure training and other needs are met to maximize employee satisfaction and retention. We will continue to shape this plan and initiate it this Spring as the hiring season ramps up.
Food Service
Despite a challenging start to the year, all kitchens are fully staffed. Welcome to the department Anna Kays, McKenzie Torres and Pam Hassel! We are seeing significant growth in online payment usage since service fee removal. Free and Reduced benefit verification begins in October, must be completed annually by 11/15.
Finance and Operations
Audit work will continue through Nov. however a lot of work was done last week with auditors in the office. Our final deadline to submit audited financial data is Nov. 30. Oct. 1 is one of our first deadlines for student accounting data for this school year. We project our enrollment numbers conservatively and it appears to be the case again this year with our Oct. 1st enrollment numbers being higher than our FY 18-19 projections.
Transportation
We had three drivers complete their training and pass their tests last week. We’ve been a little short on drivers over the past couple weeks so this is good news. We have two more applicants scheduled to train over the following weeks as well. Otherwise, routes are running well and we have been busy with many activity trips too. We are also exploring options for upgrading our current GPS system.
New Education Learning Center Building
We continue the planning for this meeting. The group met with Wold and Kraus Anderson on October 10th to review an update on the design planning. Wold and Kraus Anderson will be on our agenda for the October 30th Board Study Session to present this information as well.
Earlier this month we sent our first eNewsletter for parents. We had nearly 4,000 parents view the newsletter and received some great feedback. This is one way in which we can increase and improve our direct communications with families while providing them with important, consistent information that applies districtwide. We will send the parent newsletter out monthly. For communications, updating media inquiries and appropriate response is underway. The Communications Advisory Committee meets next on Nov. 1. We are trying to fill a vacant Isanti representative spot and are looking for recommendations.
Community Education
I am working with Kim Goodmanson and the Initiative Foundation to start an Early Childhood Foundation to help fund the work of the Early Childhood Coalition. The Early Childhood Coalition members represent businesses and organizations that provide services to young children. The coalition meets quarterly to share information and talk about ways to work together for the benefit of our youngest children and their families. The Initiative Foundation grant funding will end in a year. Creating our own foundation is an option that has been discussed with the coalition. There is up to $100,000 in matching funds that has been set aside for this foundation, with the deadline to access the matching funds in December 2019. Our team is wasting no time in getting our groundwork in place.
Teaching and Learning
The Content Area Team for K-8 English Language Arts has been established and will hold their first meeting on Nov. 1. The team will begin with a review and evaluation of the current English Language Arts programming in grades K-8.
On Oct. 22, K-5 Physical Education teachers will be engaged in a site visit at Liberty Ridge Elementary School (Woodbury, MN). This site visit is a form of authentic professional development which allows this content area an opportunity to experience some new modern engagement strategies and have professional discussions with other leaders in their field.
The 6-9 Math Content Area Team members who are piloting new core curricular resources will be attending publisher-supported training and q/a meetings during the professional development day. During this time the teachers will be provided additional training and will have an opportunity to ask questions about specific features of each program.
Innovation
We are a week and a half into our second Bluejacket Brainstorm innovation event and participation is up compared to last year’s event. We currently have 36 ideas (compared with 21 ideas at this time last year) and 84 comments (compared with 34 comments at this time last year). There are 99 staff members registered on the site, which is similar to last year’s registration numbers (99 staff registered at this time last year). See all comparison statistics here. Idea Submission will end on Oct. 24. Voting will occur from Oct. 29 through Nov. 7.
Federal Programs
The American Indian Grant was submitted to the Department of Education this week. The data pulled for grant development showed that many of our American Indian (AI) students made significant gains in academic growth last year yet we did not meet our goals in the areas of All AI Children Ready for School, All AI Third-graders Achieve Grade Level Literacy or All Achievement Closed for AI Students. We did, however, exceed in meeting our goals in the areas of: All AI Students Attain Career and College Readiness and All AI Students Graduate from High School. We are very excited that all of our AI students who were seniors last year graduated. We are also looking forward to working with our new American Indian Liaison, Jennifer Denzer, as we dive even further into enhancing the learning environment for the American Indian students in our schools.
Student Support Services
As a district, we are required to have a plan, train staff on appropriate procedures for using any restrictive procedures, and to report any restrictive procedure we use (physical holds and seclusions) each quarter. As I’ve discussed before, CPI (Crisis Prevention Intervention) training - CPI is not new to the district, but has been offered through RRSEC to buildings in a crisis team model. CPI focuses on prevention and equips staff with strategies for safely defusing anxious, hostile or violent behaviors at the earliest possible stage. New for the 2018-2019 school year, all special education staff (IAs and teachers) will be trained in the CPI model so that we are able to use learned strategies to intervene earlier when students are exhibiting behaviors.
I have trained approximately 168 staff members and will train about 45 more at the Oct. 22 professional development date. There has been great feedback on this plan to train all the SpEd staff with these techniques.
IA Update
When looking at IA reductions in the spring, we were using a snapshot-in-time to determine allocations based on current student enrollment and needs. As we have moved through the summer, we have had new students move into the district and as the new year has started, there have been a few cases of increased student behaviors. With this, we have exhausted the layoff pool. Anyone who wants to remain a C-I employee has been given that chance! In the process used in the IA contract, staff who chose a position in June had the opportunity to apply for open positions at buildings. This caused some moving around as staff found positions in schools they preferred (the postings may have been new, in response to new enrollment, due to resignations or transfers). As of now, we are staffed in our buildings to meet the needs of all our students. I have heard feedback from IAs that has expressed appreciation for the professional development we held throughout the summer. It has given them tools and resources to use in the classroom as they are working with students. As with most districts in the state, we are still needing sub IAs. In the past we were dealing with turnover plus lack of subs. Now, we have a stable group of IAs, but still feel the crunch when staff are absent.
Contact Us
Email: dist-communications@c-ischools.org
Website: www.c-ischools.org
Location: 625 Main Street South, Cambridge, MN, USA
Phone: 763-689-6188